While food in Estonia is on average 12 percent cheaper than average EU prices, alcoholic beverages are 4 percent more expensive, statistics recently released by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, show.

Estonian groceries on average cost 88 percent of the EU average. Of typical products, bread and other products made from grains cost 89 percent, meat cost 79 percent, and dairy, cheese and eggs cost 90 percent of the EU average. By contrast, while tobacco products cost 62 percent of the union-wide average, alcoholic beverages cost 104 percent of the EU average in 2015.

The highest grocery prices in the union could be found in Denmark (145 percent of the EU average), Sweden (124 percent), Austria (120 percent), and Finland and Ireland (119 percent of the overall average). Food was the cheapest in Poland (63 percent of the EU average), Romania (64 percent) and Bulgaria (70 percent). Other countries with groceries cheaper than Estonia included Lithuania (78 percent) and Hungary (79 percent) as well.

The EU’s most expensive alcoholic beverage prices in 2015 could be found in Ireland (175 percent of the EU average), Finland (172 percent), and the UK (163 percent). On average, alcoholic beverages in Latvia cost 106 percent of the EU-wide average in 2015.

The greatest variation in prices across the EU could be found in the tobacco products category, however. The union’s most expensive tobacco products could be found in the UK (218 percent or more than double the EU-wide average), Ireland (189 percent) and France (127 percent), while the cheapest prices on tobacco could be found in Bulgaria (50 percent), Lithuania (56 percent) and Latvia (59 percent of the average).